King businesses, township hit hard by COVID-19 pandemic

Schomberg’s Cottage and Crown opened less than a year before pandemic

Yorkregion.com
Oct. 1, 2020
Laura Broadley

When Yvonne Rosseau and her business partner Barbara Smith decided to pursue a longtime dream of theirs and open up a shop in Schomberg, they never imagined that less than a year later they’d be forced to temporarily close because of a global pandemic.

“We always talked about opening up a shop,” Rosseau said. “Of course we open the year there’s a pandemic.”

Cottage and Crown was created from a love of all things design for Rosseau and Smith. They opened their doors at 203 Main St. in September 2019.

Customers of Cottage and Crown can expect vintage mixed with new items. The shop offers reproduced signs, candles and Canadian works of art among several other products.

“It’s kind of everything that we love,” Rosseau said. “We’ve got whimsical things that you can’t really find anywhere else.”

But when COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, the women had to close Cottage and Crown temporarily in March. There were several unknowns, such as when the shop could open again.

When the lease for the shop was up in July, Rosseau and Smith had a decision to make.

“Do we sign another year? Do we throw in the towel?” Rosseau said.

Cottage and Crown reopened in May and it’s still recovering financially, but they did renew the lease.

It was the response from local residents of Schomberg and the wider King Township area that has Rosseau and Smith especially grateful.

“It hasn’t been as bad as it could have been,” Rosseau said. “I think people have shifted their thinking. They’re really thinking about supporting local businesses that they love because they know that if they don’t support, we’re not going to survive.”

Looking back, Rosseau wishes Cottage and Crown had its online store up and running sooner than May.

“I was doing phone orders, but I feel like if we had had the online store ready to rock from the beginning that that would’ve helped a bit, but we were just new,” Rosseau said.

Like Rosseau and Smith, the township of King didn’t predict the COVID-19 pandemic and how it would affect finances, but is doing what it can in uncertain circumstances.

In a report that went before council recently, King staff set out the financial implications of the pandemic for the township in an operating budget forecast until the end of the year. Direct COVID-19 expenses add up to $220,000 while the loss of revenue from community centres, programs and events adds up to $560,000.

Property tax penalties and interest waiver for three months created a loss of $350,000.

Money coming in from other town facilities and administrative fees during this time is expected to get the township $430,000, making the total operating budget forecasted deficit to be $700,000.

But federal and provincial funding from the Safe Restart Agreement of $575,000 leaves the municipality with a $125,000 deficit, according to the report.

Mayor Steve Pellegrini said council was proactive in its approach to the COVID-19 pandemic and took mitigating measures quickly.

“We were very quick to prioritize and ensure that essential services remained and truly evaluated what and where cost saving measures would be,” he said.

As for the forecasted tax increase for 2021 of 2.88 per cent in the operating budget, Pellegrini said council’s priorities have changed to a “near-zero budget.”

“2021, I think it’s going to hit everybody fairly abruptly and we’ve going to do our best not to be part of that,” he said.